


I feel it when I sorrow most

by hes_per_ides



Series: Indrani Shepard [2]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 06:51:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13828809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hes_per_ides/pseuds/hes_per_ides
Summary: While Shepard is locked away, there's not much to do but read and think and brood. One book from her reading pile reminds her of someone she's lost.(Pre-ME3, during Shepard's incarceration)





	I feel it when I sorrow most

“Tennyson?” asked James, craning his neck to read the spine of the hard-copy book Shepard was reading. She sat curled in a chair by the window, her knees drawn up to her chest and the book leant against them as she read.

“Nineteenth century British poet,” said Shepard. She turned a page as she spoke, her gaze barely flicking up from the book.

James leant against the bookcase, his arms crossed and a wry smile on his face. “Huh. Guess you learn something new every day,” he said.

Now she looked up, an eyebrow raised. “You never heard of Tennyson, lieutenant?”

James scoffed. “Nah, I’ve heard of Tennyson. I’m talking about Commander Shepard being a poetry nerd.  _That’s_  news.”

Shepard carefully closed the book. She regarded the gilt spine for a moment before laying it down on the table next to her chair, then stood and crossed to the window. She stared through the glass, not really seeing. The view might have been considered good, for a prison cell, but she’d been stuck in there for three months already and the view across the bay had begun to pall around day four. She hadn’t had much else to do at that point, other than look out the window and wait for the next shiny uniform in the queue to show up and harangue her. Lieutenant Vega had turned up on day eight with a handwritten note from Admiral Anderson ( _“Don’t go too crazy in there”_ ) attached to a box of books- paper editions, not digital: she wasn’t allowed anything that might be persuaded to give her extranet access- and she’d just reached the elderly volume of poetry around half way down. The Admiral couldn’t have known when he sent it to her, but it had felt like a rebuke. More than being stripped of rank, more than the confinement. More than the accusations and interrogations. More than the trial that was dragging on and on as everyone who had ever wanted a piece of her ripped off their strip. This slim block of paper and glue with its thin pages and delicately gilt covers might as well have been a brick dropped through her chest. She’d flipped through the pages until she found a line she recognised, and the brick had sunk further still.

 _‘I cannot rest from travel: I will drink life to the lees’_. Ulysses. Ashley’s favourite.

Shepard sighed, and finally she spoke; “I’m not. Truth be told, I never read it before today.” She turned her back on the window and faced the young lieutenant. “But an old friend was a fan.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from another Tennyson poem- "In Memoriam A.H.H."


End file.
